On Exile. And Return

Israel/Palestine. In Diaspora. In Exile. Who has the Right of Return? I have thought about this for decades. I have very, very unconventional thoughts about both. Most of my Jewish and Christian friends and family are shocked – gob smacked - to learn about them. Hence, I have been reluctant to share them. Especially recently.

 My thoughts are very much informed by my 7 years’ experience of living in Israel (I am a citizen to this day and speak fluent, if rusty, Hebrew).  I am informed by observing the situation intimately both then and from afar since. I have visited periodically since I moved from there to London and eventually back to the U.S. My brother was an Israeli tank commander in both Lebanon and the West Bank. Many of my friends also served in the IDF. Several people I know, and love were killed or gravely injured (mentally and physically).

  My views are also informed by my family history, religiously speaking, both Christian and Jewish. My family was heavily impacted by the Holocaust. My father and grandmother were the only survivors of their family in Southwest Poland.  

 It may surprise you to know that my thoughts do not flow only from my personal experience.

 As an undergraduate, I studied history and concentrated my interests on the history of Europe from 1870 to World War II, including the interwar years.  I invested an extensive amount of time - academically as both an undergraduate and at law school - researching the European Holocaust and several the other genocidal events in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia (and the list goes on). I spent the better part of my law school career – to the extent possible - concentrating on Humanitarian Law and the Law of War, including war crimes prosecution and various conventions and treaties. I wrote and published a dissertation for the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and Rwanda on the Hierarchy of International Laws. I worked on projects including a study  of the intersection (particularly the contradictions) of the new Afghani Constitution and the UN Convention (to which they are signatories). I closely followed the nascent International Criminal Court in the Hague (from which the U.S. withdrew under George W. Bush).  I lived in, or traveled to some 35 countries around the world. 

 As a person and a lawyer, I am deeply conscious of the role the law plays in maintaining a civil society. I am also acutely aware that many approach the issues of Israel from a religious, spiritual, and emotional place. I respect that. I am not immune.  I am also of the belief that ALL living beings are chosen by God. There is not ‘one’ Chosen People. ALL people are chosen by god.  In my belief system my god is a god of love.

 The Law of War, or International Humanitarian Law, is well established. The basic tenets were laid down centuries ago by Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in the 3^rd century. His is the first systematic exposition of the law of war. It was expanded upon by Thomas Aquinas – famous for his philosophical and theological proof of the existence of God in the 13th century. In his Summa Theologicae, Aquinas presents the general outline of what would become the traditional “Just War Theory.” Aquinas sets forth the basis for entering into a just war and once engaged, the kinds of activity that are permissible (for a Christian) in war. The two are known as Jus ad bellum and Jus in Bello. Jus ad Bellum - entering into war -is limited to self-defense against an attack or to avoid an imminent threat. Jus in Bello sets forth conduct that is forbidden in war. Jus in Bello states that the defense must be proportionate to the force brought against the defender. It proscribes “necessity” as the sole measure of the force that may be used as a defense. War must be entered into with specific intention. The intention must lead to greater peace and justice than existed prior to the outbreak of war.  Critical in the current discussion, force may not be used for revenge and civilians must be protected.

 These principles were later codified in law. Among others are Lincoln’s Civil War “Order 100” which itself is based on the then-contemporaneous “Lieber Code” which shortly thereafter forms the basis for the Hague and Geneva Conventions.

 One useful way to look at the situation in Israel- Palestine is take it out of this historic Jewish/Muslim/Christian context. I feel that one cannot discount the influence of Christian Evangelicals and “Christian Zionism” in this equation.   We can still frame it in religious context and not end up in the same distorted view we have of Israel/Palestine.

 One can imagine a situation involving Irish Catholics, who by and large supported Irish Catholic terrorism under the IRA. There were many bloody, horrific attacks in which the IRA attacked Protestants. Imagine that as a response, Protestants were to confine all Catholics into a small geographic area, walled it in, and surrounded it with a well-armed military, bristling with very high tech, advanced weapons, all heavily financed and supported by their co-religionists, the British. Now the IRA have retreated into that enclave, tunneling beneath the civilian population. Women and children. Dense with homes. Schools. Hospitals.  If Irish Protestants were to begin indiscriminately firing rockets, including white phosphorous shells, into the Catholic enclave - from thousands of feet in the air where they are free from any risk to themselves – any civilized nation and its citizens would stand on its hind legs and howl. If they were to indiscriminately kill all those trapped within, destroy infrastructure, homes, churches, hospitals? Deprive all inhabitants of food, water, fuel, and medicine – we would not hesitate to call that a war crime. 

 Were there also of the Irish Terrorists? Absolutely yes. (to the Irish Catholics, they were “freedom fighters”) Did the IRA massacre Protestants? Absolutely yes.  Does that justify the wholesale slaughter of ALL of the Irish Catholics?  Absolutely not.

 While living on Kibbutz Ginegar near Afula, in 1982, I watched tanks roll northward and heard the jets flying low to avoid radar detection as Israel surged into Lebanon. The jets, roaring past us at the speed of sound caused sonic booms that rattled our windows. Kibbutz Ginegar, in the northern end of the Valley of Sharon, is not far from Meggido. Har Meggido (Mount Megiddo) that is. If that sounds vaguely familiar to you, you might know it better as Armageddon. It surely felt like Armegeddon was imminent.

 The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 followed an earlier invasion in 1978 that pushed Palestinians north of the Litani River in Southern Lebanon.  Thereafter, civil unrest among Lebanese factions allowed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to continue operations against Israel to the south. In 1982, Israeli joined forces with Lebanese Christian Militias to expel the PLO.  

 I watched in horror as the Lebanese and Israelis systematically massacred Palestinians at Sabra & Shatilla refugee camps near Beirut. 

 All of this occurred when Jewish Settlers were ramping up settlements in the Occupied Territories further displacing Palestinians. Displacement of Palestinians is a fact that has been going on since at least 1948. Actually, long before that.

 More recently, Israel built "security barriers" around both the West Bank and Gaza. These are concrete walls, as high as 20 or more feet in some places, topped with barbed wire and guard towers. The roads that run from one Jewish settlement to another (settlements illegal under international law) bisect the remaining Palestinian villages.  Palestinians are forbidden to use those roads.  This is what many refer to as the Apartheid State in Israel.

 Many do not realize the occupation of West Bank and settlements have nothing to do with religion, although they are justified by the biblical notion of Judea and Samaria. Nor are they connected to nationality - historical or cultural connection to the land. No. If you look at a map of the Jewish settlements and overlay it with the hydrologic maps identifying of the natural aquifers providing the primary source of fresh water in the region you will find that the Jewish settlements are placed strategically over and around the only natural aquifers in the region. Israel has systematically deprived Palestinians of the water necessary for their mostly agricultural villages. The desert blooms only for Israelis but at the expense of their Palestinian neighbors.  Palestinian settlements that have been in place for hundreds of years and held by generations of Palestinians. These Palestinian farms – utterly deprived of water – are destroyed and Palestinians herded into ever smaller enclaves. Olive groves hundreds of years old that supplied food and sustenance for generations of Palestinians are bulldozed into oblivion, along with their homes.

 Meanwhile, south and west of the Occupied West Bank and not connected by any land bridge, Israel claims to have "completely withdrawn" from Gaza in 2005. That is fiction. They "withdrew" their occupying military forces but retained control of all ingress/egress (now walled in) They control the water, fuel, electricity and all imports and exports including food, building materials and medical supplies. They never relinquished that control. That is why they can, overnight, turn it all off.

  If you cannot see the obvious comparison to these Pales-stans, I will make it plain: Israel created their very own Warsaw Ghettos. They are now bent on “liquidation” – which does not necessarily mean death. Liquidation, or “ethnic cleansing” is a term not defined explicitly identified as war crime on it’s own. However, the U.N. Security Council’s Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992) , citing to it’s interim report states (emphasis mine):

 ``55. The expression `ethnic cleansing' is relatively new. Considered in the context of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, `ethnic cleansing' means rendering an area ethnically homogenous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area. `Ethnic cleansing' is contrary to international law.

`56. Based on the many reports describing the policy and practices conducted in the former Yugoslavia, `ethnic cleansing' has been carried out by means of murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extra-judicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property. Those practices constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention.

Zionists (both Jewish AND Christian) justify ethnic cleansing to address the "Existential Crisis" of the Jews. Or the Rapturous Ecstasy of Salvation. Our existence, or salvation, is theoretically only guaranteed by the existence of the State of Israel. The long Jewish existential nightmare was, of course, set in collective minds of Jews around the world by the Holocaust. Long before that, the Jewish Diaspora, following the destruction of the 2^nd Jewish temple in 70 CE, together with repeated experience -  across generations - of antisemitism, pograms, internal exile to The Pale – all a steady crescendo culminating in the Holocaust. In Europe.

 This existential threat is the reason all Jews everywhere in the world have a "Right of Return" to the land of Israel. It's automatic. We can ‘return’ anytime – to a place some have never been before - claiming the right to make Aliyah (the right to “go up” to Israel). Upon arrival we may instantaneously become a citizen (as I and my entire family did in 1979). When you do that, the State of Israel pays a very generous part of your transition. They provide housing, language schools, subsidies, loan guarantees, free importation of all your household goods (including duty free appliances and cars).

 The Gelbman family – all of us - received all of that free even though we were a wealthy American family.  In our case, we were given – rent free – two apartments in a lovely seaside suburb of Ashkelon. In our “Merkaz Klitah” (Absorption Center) there were three brand-new high-rise apartment buildings with a view of the sea a few blocks distant. Mom, Dad and the 2 boys in one building, I and my two sisters in a second apartment across the courtyard. Both apartments were furnished with basic furniture and household goods which were ours to keep. Those items referred as “Sachnut” (Jewish Agency) furniture, all pretty utilitarian, but we were very comfortable.

 For you who are believers and know your Bible, you’ll recall Ashkelon as the place where Samson did his thing with Delilah and the Philistines.  See also The Book of Judges (ספר שופטים) chapters 13-16.

 

 Ashkelon is roughly 15 miles north of Gaza – both snug up against the same Mediterranean Sea and some mighty gorgeous beaches.  There we were provided with intensive Hebrew language lessons in an “Ulpan” (studio) 6 hours a day, 6 hours a day. My two younger brothers (then 8 and 14) went straight to Israeli public schools the day after we arrived.  So, our life as Jews, Returning to the Land of Israel, began. Having had no Jewish upbringing at all prior to arrival.

 For hundreds of years, following the destruction of the 2^nd Temple a small remnant of Jews continued to live peacefully side by side with the other indigenous people - the Palestinians.  The Jews in Diaspora (Dispersion) were displaced by Romans. In turn, those of us claiming our Right of Return would displace Palestinians.

 That was NOT in 1948. Nor was it following the Holocaust or the Israeli War of Independence. It was well underway before that. The Holocaust accelerated the establishment of the state and only after Zionist militants – terrorists – convinced the British to depart. Menachem Begin was a leader of the Irgun and they were terrorists.

 Zionism developed into a formal movement in 1896 following the publication of Theodor Herzl's pamphlet, "The Zionist State." While there was plenty of antisemitism in Europe driving that movement, it was no different from all other forms of "nationalist" movements that were cropping up all over Europe. And elsewhere around the world. These nationalist aspirations accelerated in the wake of World War I (including many former colonies in Southeast Asia and across the African Continent).  Nationalism has its roots in the French Revolution, but basically it advocates for the creation of nations based on ethnicity. Ethnic Slavs, ethnic Germans (so-called “Aryans”), ethnic Magyars. It is closely related to the pseudo-science popular at the same time, called Eugenics. Eugenics also justified segregation in the U.S.  (curiously, the University of Virginia was a central hotbed of "Eugenics" and has a frightful history of conducting and supporting it as a "science").

 Here is the rub. Jewish Zionist aspirations did not succeed as others seemed to do at that time. Instead, the Holocaust happened - as we know all too well. The trauma was real, and it remains with us - passed down through the generations since. But a Jewish Holocaust is not happening NOW. Not to the Jews anyway. There is no existential threat to the State of Israel. Do people get killed? Yes. Horribly, tragically. However, the current existential threat is to the PALESTINIANS. Ethnic cleansing has been going on for decades. Israel did not just start firing missiles into Gaza on October 8th. For years Israeli rockets have come in response to rockets fired OUT of Gaza. Until recently, the missiles coming out of Gaza have been very crude, unguided weapons that land pretty much anywhere and often hit no target at all.  The ratio of Jews to Palestinians killed since 2000 is OVERWHELMINGLY more Palestinian that Jewish. See also: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-208380/

  Israel has been firing high tech guided missiles into Gaza as if shooting fish in a barrel for decades.

 Much of what we have read or heard about events on October 7^th are shrouded in the “fog of war” – on both sides. The Hamas attacks are monstrous. Ghastly. Hearing of the hostage taking we are filled with horror and terror, our trauma response on full display. However, accurate or not, I note that both Haaretz and Yidiot Achronot (two major Israeli daily news papers) reported that some of the bodies recovered at the music festival or nearby are in fact Palestinians burnt beyond recognition and only identified by DNA. Also, both Israeli papers are reporting that Israeli helicopters arriving on the scene indiscriminately fired rockets into the crowd and themselves are responsible for some portion of the casualties. It’s monstrous. All of it. But I do not accept at face value everything I see, read or hear.

 Almost everyone believes this problem is intractable. So complicated! So much history! HUNDREDS of years of conflict! All of that is an excuse to justify the status quo. But we have NOT preserved the status quo. Palestinians have continued to be displaced. Israel is now taking the recent Hamas attack as a carte blanche to “finish the job of annihilating Palestinians once and for all.” (a phrased used by leaders of the Knesset and American supporters alike).  Under the guise of "defense" -- they are turning Gaza into nothing but dust and rubble. They’ve massacred 10s of thousands in the last several weeks, among them some 4000 children, and mostly civilians. Simultaneously they are taking the opportunity to allow Jewish Settlers to run rampant in the West Bank. There they are terrorizing what remains of Palestinian cities and agricultural villages “inducing” their departure. And this morning I am reading of attacks in Lebanon and Syria as well. See also: https://www.nytimes.com/.../west-bank-settlers

 Hamas does NOT control the West Bank (the Palestinian Authority does, which grew out of Yassir Arafat’s PLO). Efforts to "eradicate Hamas" from the West Bank are a fiction and have no relation to the attacks against Israel on October 7. Are there radical Muslims on the West Bank? Yes of course.  Little known fact: there is also a very large number of Palestinian Christians. Bethlehem is mostly populated by Christian Palestinians. It is in the heart of the West Bank.  Nazareth also has a sizable Christian population (which should come as no surprise to anyone).

 Hamas operates out of Gaza, not the West Bank. Important to understand that Hamas is the elected government of Gaza (not the West Bank) since 2006. A democratically conducted election complete with international election observers, including some from Jimmy Carter’s “Carter Center.”   What many do not know is that Hamas – like the Irish national movement - is made up of two wings. Much like the Irish political movement, there is a terrorist IRA-like wing and a separate social/political wing. And Hamas’ military wing are brutal terrorists. The social/political wing of Hamas built schools, hospitals, orphanages, and many other beneficial welfare programs. THAT is who Gazan’s elected in 2006. They won 35% of the available parliamentary seats. Enough for a controlling interest in their government but by no means an overwhelming majority.  The military wing has held all of Gaza hostage ever since. No subsequent elections have ever been held. Worse - and little known outside Israel –Netanyahu and his Likud partners – funded and supported Hamas. This is well documented and was reported in the Jerusalem Post in 2019. See: https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-to-hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-palestinians-divided-583082

 Israeli violence and purposeful displacement in the West Bank (not Gaza) is in no way, shape or form any form of “defense” yet it has accelerated since October 7^th. That is ethnic cleansing and it's a war crime above, beyond and entirely separate from the blockade of Gaza, and the targeting of hospitals and other civilian sites in Gaza. That is opportunism. “Jewish settlers” are doing it under the protection, watchful and very complacent gaze of the Israeli military. And the U.S. government.

 It is not Jewish existence that is threatened. It is Palestinians’ existence at peril.

 So. All that said, one must ask: what is the solution?  I don’t think it is nearly as complicated as most others do. It may be because I do not get bogged down in historical and religious claims. A large part of which is fiction and mythology. Even if one buys all of that, it is possible to set all that aside and go from where we are today.

 I tend to think in analogies. It helps me to understand things. Here is my analogy.

 This entire situation is like a super-sized case of domestic violence. Domestic Violence is chaotic, but it does not spring up a vacuum. It bubbles along, hidden from the neighbors view behind lace curtains – a brutal prison masquerading as a happy home. It is only revealed to outsiders when a crisis occurs. When things spiral out of control. When such a crisis breaks out, law enforcement is called in. Talk to any first-responder and they will tell you that DV calls are the most terrifying and dangerous - for everyone.

 When the police arrive, they cannot broker "peace" between a violent brute standing over his battered and powerless wife. No. USUALLY someone has to be removed from the situation. Someone gets to spend a night in jail and the spouse is whisked off to a secret shelter. In other words, the parties are SEPARATED until the power differential can be equalized. Then and only then can one properly work toward protecting the interests of both parties.

 That's what has to happen. The U.S. is NOT a proper party to intervene because we are the ones who arm and finance Israel. We have kept our thumb heavily on the scale of power thereby multiplying the differential by an order of magnitude. There is no way Palestinians can trust or rely upon the U.S. to guarantee their safety long enough to broker any kind of settlement. That cannot work. That is the very definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  But they MUST be separated, and the shooting stopped. The land grabbing stopped. It will probably require a robust multi-national police force.  That is how Jimmy Carter got Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to Camp David to forge the first peace agreement. The shooting stopped. Importantly, Carter threatened to cut off ALL financial and military support to Israel in order to get Begin to come to the table at all. Many people do not know that or have forgotten. It was a KEY factor in the success of the Camp David Accords. Sadat for his part risked his life to make it happen.  Shutting off the U.S. tap is the only thing that seems to shift the imbalance of power.  

 SO they get separated. NOW what? Well, I think the analogy goes further. We MUST acknowledge the effect trauma -including intergenerational trauma - has had on all of us.

 This is where I get into trouble with many Jewish and Christian people with whom I’ve shared my thoughts. I postulate that the abused have become the abusers.

 The trauma of the Holocaust still exists. It still exists in me.  Trauma informed therapy shows that failure to deal with the underlying trauma means that the trauma RESPONSE will persist. What we know about the trauma of domestic violence is that the abused victim --- without intervention – can (often does?) become the abuser. In that way I am NOT shocked that the survivors and offspring of the Warsaw Ghetto and survivors of concentration camps have themselves created their own modern-day equivalents in Gaza and the West Bank.  Some may find it shocking to know that Israel has a deeply hidden culture that fetishizes Nazism in pornography. It’s shocking but I’ve seen it myself. (Don’t ask!)

 By now several generations of both Jews AND Palestinians are egregiously traumatized. Repeatedly and horrifically. The trauma response – brutal violence - will continue until they can be separated and allowed to deal with the underlying  trauma - not the land. When the trauma response is arrested, the power differential evened out, then, and only then can the peace process begin. Just as it does in divorce. Property settled. Custody and support set forth in a binding agreement.

 I have so much more to say. But that's enough for now. What we need is not merely a pause or even a cease fire. What we need is a HALT and robustly enforced de-escalation. NOW. And immediate disarmament of both parties with a guarantee of safety - to both sides. There can be NO successful negotiation until there is a level playing field. The power differential makes that impossible and always has. There is no basis for trust for American negotiators by Palestinians. As long as the U.S. is arming Israel, and financing everything else - no amount of "humanitarian aid" to Palestinians has any meaning whatsoever. “Humanitarian aid” in the present circumstances is like beating a child half to death with an iron rod while he is tied to a chair, the brutality pausing just long enough to give the child a sip of water to revive him, only to continue the beating. It's insanity to expect any other outcome but more radicalization, more brutality and violence.

 Brutality begets brutality. And the present situation only further radicalizes both sides. Israel is not defeating or eradicating terrorism. It is encouraging it. On both sides. In the name of “god.” And we are helping them.  It must stop.

No more. Not in my name. Not. In. My. Name.